


Burn the Night

by red_river



Category: Shin Sangokumusou | Dynasty Warriors
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 09:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24348469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_river/pseuds/red_river
Summary: They both know how this goes, by now.  But there’s no need to rush.  There is something to savor, too, in the anticipation.  He loves watching the sparks catch in those dazzling amber eyes.  Zhou Yu could stand forever like this with him, just at the edge of the bonfire.Sun Ce loses patience first, always.  He slides his hands up Zhou Yu’s chest to wrap his arms around his neck, bringing them nose to nose and surrendering to the burn.“Kiss me already,” he whispers, and with those words strikes the match, begins their incineration.
Relationships: Sūn Cè/Zhōu Yú
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Burn the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Just a glimpse of one night in Zhou Yu and Sun Ce's lives, a stolen moment. This is a standalone story, but in my head it's a missing fragment of Secession, a very long story I wrote for these two years ago (and hope to edit and revive here on AO3 at some point). 
> 
> Written imagining Zhou Yu and Sun Ce from DW5 - I can't give up Sun Ce's ponytail.

It comes on him suddenly, the heat. It’s been a long night for the leading officers of Wu, and Zhou Yu’s only thoughts are of sleep as they make their way through the quiet corridors of Qingshan’s palace, the smells of the feast still lingering in the air. A candle gutters in his hand, throwing long shadows over the stone walls. Sun Ce is in the lead, complaining about the minor official who smothered him all night, and Zhou Yu is hardly listening, familiar by now with the power games of politicians and Sun Ce’s opinions of those who are masters of the art. Then Sun Ce turns to catch his eyes over his shoulder, and Zhou Yu feels something fly between them—the flicker of a smile, the quick singe of a spark brushing his skin. It hardly lasts a heartbeat, but it leaves something burning in his chest, like an ember tucked deep inside the bones.

Their room is pale with the wealth of moonlight. Zhou Yu changes swiftly into a sleeping robe, carves his fingers through his dark hair. It isn’t until he turns, prepared for bed, that he realizes Sun Ce is not, still dressed in his formal robe as he stands with his hands braced on the windowsill, peering out into the midnight garden.

“Nice night.”

The words are quiet, almost an afterthought. Zhou Yu watches him lean forward to inhale the scent of the apple tree beyond the window and then laugh a little as his nose bumps the decorative screen.

Zhou Yu shakes his head. He bends to extinguish the candle, his hair tucked carefully behind his ear. “I’m surprised to hear you say that, after you spent the better part of it glaring at me over Lord Fu Zhi’s head.”

Sun Ce’s whole body slumps. “Man, I couldn’t get away from that guy,” he groans. “I put him next to the Qiaos ’cause I was hoping that would distract him, but he just wanted to blab at me the whole time.”

Zhou Yu sighs. “That’s probably because you’re…” But he makes it no farther than that, the remark truncated by the slither of silk over skin as Sun Ce shucks off his robe and reveals himself to the night, naked but for a pair of soft pants slung low on his hips. The moonlight makes a splendor of him, the warm skin of his chest and shoulders faintly glowing, and though it is a body he has known so many times, nonetheless Zhou Yu is enthralled by his silhouette framed against the window, by the shape of him pressed into the spectral petals of the white apple blossoms. The red ribbon sears into his collarbone as Sun Ce shakes his head, musses a hand through his hair, turns back to his silent companion.

“Huh? I’m what?”

Zhou Yu swallows against a dry throat. “Captivating.”

He barely thinks the word before it is on his lips. It’s more honest than he intended to be, but it’s too late to take it back now. Sun Ce blinks and cranes his head to catch his eyes. Zhou Yu can see the moment the night comes into focus for him, too. He wonders for just a moment what he looks like in the moonlight, his hair loose over his shoulders, one hand forgotten against the bed’s carved post. Then Sun Ce smiles, and a soft chuckle teases Zhou Yu’s ears as he ambles back across the room, stopping just a hair’s breadth away. 

“Oh yeah?” Sun Ce says, his voice light. “You think Fu Zhi feels that way?”

His proximity is like a breath of wind, the air between them suddenly magnetized. “I’m surprised they don’t all feel that way,” Zhou Yu tells him, and Sun Ce tosses his head, pleased by the compliment, the red ribbon lilting over his bare shoulder.

“I’ll try to let him down easy.”

Zhou Yu doesn’t answer. This close, Sun Ce can see everything he’s thinking regardless, and Fu Zhi is long put out of his mind by more visceral things. He lifts one hand to hold Sun Ce’s hip and with the other brings the trailing end of the red ribbon up to his lips, feels the first shiver race through Sun Ce’s skin as he presses a kiss into the fabric.

They both know how this goes, by now. The next movements are corded into their muscles like the ritual of warfare, like the notes of an old song so often played that the lute strings have gone thin at the fingerings. But there’s no need to rush. There is something to savor, too, in the anticipation, and in the moments before they close the distance, he takes in as much as he can: the night birds, the moonlight, the ink strokes of Sun Ce’s hair spilled over his luminous shoulders. The pungent heat of the apple blossoms hits him like wine, burns in his chest as he breathes deep, traces the ridge of Sun Ce’s hipbone with his thumb and feels the heartbeat jump under his hand. He loves watching the sparks catch in those dazzling amber eyes. Zhou Yu could stand forever like this with him, just at the edge of the bonfire.

Sun Ce loses patience first, always. He slides his hands up Zhou Yu’s chest to wrap his arms around his neck, bringing them nose to nose and surrendering to the burn.

“Kiss me already,” he whispers, and with those words strikes the match, begins their incineration.

Zhou Yu kisses him hard and fast, swallowing his gasp as their mouths crash together. Sun Ce’s lips are parted and he takes the invitation at once, strokes his way inside to map the secret corners of his mouth. Sun Ce’s hands tighten in his shirt, scrambling for an anchor point, and Zhou Yu pulls him in, wraps both arms around his waist to hold him steady against the rush of blood in his head. Already he can feel Sun Ce’s heart pounding under his ribs, his lungs shuddering as he sucks a breath out of Zhou Yu’s mouth. Zhou Yu withdraws for a moment to let him breathe. Then Sun Ce gives a devilish grin and sweeps his leg out from under him, and Zhou Yu loses his balance, taking them back onto the bed in a heap.

Sun Ce has always been physical. This comes naturally to him, far easier than it did for Zhou Yu. But he has spent years in fervent study of the contours of this body, every scar and ridge of bone hovering beneath the skin, and the details are long etched into his mind, the salt of his sweat and the rush of blood in his veins, in battle or pressed down into the rippling sheets. Sun Ce hits his back and braces his hands on Zhou Yu’s cheeks, pulls him down to fit their mouths together again, and Zhou Yu closes his eyes, reveling in the warm slide of their tongues.

They need this too much to stay still for long. He finds the will to move first, pressing his lips into the dip below Sun Ce’s jugular, the deep hollow of his clavicle, all the small and secret spaces that belong only to the two of them. This body is a confession, a canvas inked with their years together; Zhou Yu knows every birthmark, remembers every scar. He frowns as he traces the thick groove an arrow whittled out of his side, a wound that was almost his last. But Sun Ce is alive and he’s on fire in Zhou Yu’s arms, and that is enough just for this moment. He leaves a mark of his own where silk and armor will cover it.

Sun Ce lifts his head to get his teeth around an earlobe, his dry lips rasping over the curve. “Leave one a little higher. I never get to show off.”

“You’re not supposed to show off,” Zhou Yu murmurs into blistering skin, and Sun Ce laughs, that delighted sound rushing over the concave of Zhou Yu’s ear like a breaking wave.

Zhou Yu doesn’t think of his ears as particularly sensitive. But the sear of warm breath flushing that seashell cavity, the soft moans and choked-off whispers of his name as he nips at Sun Ce’s jawline—that ignites him like nothing else can. Already he’s finding the groove where their hips fit together, seeking friction in the collision of joints and parted thighs, in the smooth slide of red silk.

Sun Ce drops back into the pillows, unfastens the ties of Zhou Yu’s robe with fingers that are far too accustomed to this. Zhou Yu feels the night breeze on his chest in the second before Sun Ce leans in to lick a stripe up his neck and sets the skin on fire, every nerve aflame.

“Is that all you got?” he asks, eyes dark.

He’s only teasing. Zhou Yu rises to it all the same, not to silence him but for the pleasure of seeing those amber eyes widen as he descends and feathers kisses over his ticklish stomach, feeling the shudder and release of smooth muscles as Sun Ce struggles not to laugh. Zhou Yu knows everywhere he’s sensitive, likes to fit his mouth to the arch of his foot and feel the shock race through his body, his knee jerking up instinctively, drawing Zhou Yu where Sun Ce most wants him to go.

Zhou Yu hooks his thumbs under the waistband of the light pants and pulls them down slowly, follows the lines of sinews back up his calves and thighs, the warm skin trembling under his fingertips. Sun Ce clutches his shoulder and Zhou Yu looks up to affirm, as he always does, that this is wanted, that this is his to take. Their eyes meet in the blazing dark. Sun Ce’s chest is heaving and his breath is coming fast, the dark plum of his mouth split open, tempting Zhou Yu to slide up and kiss him again—but he’s too impatient tonight to take things that slowly, and in any case, he’s found what he was looking for in the other man’s face.

Zhou Yu kisses the slope of his thigh twice, three times, tattooing unsaid words into the skin. Then he bends and takes Sun Ce into his mouth, holding him down with a pale hand on his hip. With the other he hooks Sun Ce’s knee over his shoulder so that he can go deeper, drown in the smell of him and the heat of their entwining bodies, utterly in his thrall. Sun Ce moans and thrashes against the bed, the red ribbon like fire on a white pillow as his hand knots into dark hair.

“Nn…Yu…”

Zhou Yu releases his hip, reaches up to press warm fingers over those parted lips, a warning he’s given many times: _Not my name_. It is the concession he makes to wisdom, alleviating the risk of being discovered this way—so naturally, it is the only thing Sun Ce wants to say. It is the only thing Zhou Yu wants to hear. Sun Ce grabs his hand and presses rough kisses into his knuckles, distracted and clumsy, and even more than the heady taste of his flesh, Zhou Yu enjoys that most: the knowledge of what this does to him.

Sun Ce is never content for long to sit back and watch. Zhou Yu has barely found his rhythm before a warm hand lifts his jaw, locking their eyes.

“Hey,” Sun Ce murmurs, the words rough like his breath. “I wanna…how am I supposed to…touch you if you’re all the way down there?”

Zhou Yu could be content with nothing more than this. But he obliges all the same, rises on his hands and then lets Sun Ce take control as he catches Zhou Yu’s shoulders, pushes him back to sit on the edge of the bed. He is bare now, too, the red sleeping robe embroidered with silver tigers just a scarlet shadow beneath them. Sun Ce slides close and swings a leg over to straddle his lap, knees digging into abandoned silk as he brings them, finally, flesh to flesh.

Sun Ce catches his moan in his mouth. This kiss is slower, deeper, every stroke of his tongue stoking the fire that rages in the liminal spaces of Zhou Yu’s ribs. Sun Ce licks his lips, eyes playful as he leans back on his companion’s thighs.

“You’ll fall,” Zhou Yu warns, his voice low in the breathless dark. 

Sun Ce laughs. “You won’t let me. You never do.”

Zhou Yu never will. His hands settle in the grooves of his companion’s hips, holding him steady as Sun Ce takes his time, runs his fingers down Zhou Yu’s back, his muscled chest, teasing the nipples with his callused thumbs. Zhou Yu has his scars, too, and Sun Ce fits his palm against the marred flesh at his waist, a memento of the battle for Xuancheng, before sliding up over the rounds of his shoulders to trace his arms. Zhou Yu is oversensitive, attuned to him, panting at the soft scrape of fingernails on his skin. Sun Ce laughs a little, squeezing his bicep.

“You’re getting strategist arms,” he teases, curling his own arm to reveal the slightly larger bulge. “Gonna have to join me for training a little more often instead of hiding out in that office.”

Zhou Yu chuckles, noses at the seam between Sun Ce’s neck and shoulder. “Apparently. I’d hate to finally finish all of that paperwork only to find I no longer appeal to you.”

Sun Ce scoffs and pushes back to look at him. “You’re kidding, right? Everybody in the Wu Territory wants a piece of you. If anyone should be worried, it’s me.”

“No,” Zhou Yu tells him, and the word is soft, as soft as his fingers caressing the smooth flutter of Sun Ce’s muscles, the stair step of his ribs—the bronze skin and the fast in and out of his lungs, his blood an inferno beneath the skin. “If you could see yourself as I see you, you never would.”

Sun Ce smiles. Then he comes in again, crashing into Zhou Yu chest to chest as he takes them both in an experienced hand. Zhou Yu braces on his palms, has to tip his head back to allow breath down a tight throat. Pleasure races up his body and he struggles to keep them upright, his elbows buckling, all but undone by the friction of calluses on satin skin. Sun Ce wraps one arm around his shoulders, sets fire to Zhou Yu’s ear as he traces his tongue along the rim.

“So show me. How you see me.”

Zhou Yu finds his eyes. Then he drops suddenly onto his back, surprise lighting Sun Ce’s face as they hit the bed, the frame creaking with their weight. Zhou Yu turns his hip and rolls, and that surprise disappears into a knowing smile as he brings them back to their starting position, his arms caging Sun Ce’s head and all the intricacies of their smoldering limbs pressed close, intertwined. The amber eyes beneath him burn like a lit fuse. Sun Ce laughs and bumps their noses together.

“Mm. Yeah. Come on.”

This part is old habit now, all the motions familiar—the stretch and heat, the way Sun Ce’s breath catches in his throat like a moth and Zhou Yu presses his lips to the skin over his windpipe, urges it to settle again. The way Sun Ce locks one leg around his hip to bring him closer, to beg him to hurry up—but Zhou Yu takes his time, will never hurt him with this, restrains himself to two fingers and then three until there is no resistance, until Sun Ce is like water beneath him and his hips rise to Zhou Yu’s touch every time as if they are the moon and tides, inextricably bound. Only then does Zhou Yu permit himself to give in, to sink into familiar heat and lean down to rest his forehead against Sun Ce’s shoulder, streamlining his body, feeling the vibrations of his own thrusts in the shudder of the other man’s bones. Zhou Yu closes his eyes, and for a long minute he holds them just there, at the threshold, his movements steady, smooth, and deep.

Sun Ce’s hand is on his neck, brushing back his hair, baring the skin to words punctuated by the stutter in his breath.

“Hey. Ah. Faster. I can take it.”

Zhou Yu lifts his head, stares into eyes that have been eclipsed by blown pupils, the amber just a halo of fire burning in the depths of him. “Ce, I…”

Sun Ce laughs against his lips. “Yeah. Me too.”

It’s difficult to kiss him at this pace, but Zhou Yu manages, their lips scorching like stars on collision courses. Then he forgets his restraint, allows himself to take what he wants most—not the blur of sudden motion, not the desire that rises in his chest with each faster collision, but the ecstasy of watching Sun Ce come undone: head thrown back, eyes half-lidded, his fingers digging into Zhou Yu’s shoulders and his heart roaring like a wildfire until he’s lost all words but one.

“Yu…ah…Yu…”

Zhou Yu tries to shush him, but Sun Ce locks his arms around his neck, draws them chest to chest and drives him in deeper as he fastens his lips over Zhou Yu’s ear, the only safe place to put that sound.

“Yu—Yu—Yu—”

Zhou Yu loses himself in that litany and carries them both into the crash.


End file.
